In the town where I grew up, the soda fountain at the drugstore wouldn’t serve “colored” people (as we said in those days). As a society we decided that wasn’t right. If you’re open to the public for business, then you’re open to the public. There are reasonable restrictions — for instance, if someone is being rowdy, you can refuse service. But that’s behavior, not identity.

We’ve got illiterates of our own,we’ve got the best illiterates in the world, after all, this is the US, and it’s not fair that illiterates from 3rd world countries should be coming in and competing with them.

I understood. I’ve come across the terminology here and there. I think maybe in The Sixth Extinction there’s discussion of increasing acidity of the ocean? But it’s a while ago that I read that, so I could be wrong. I really appreciate what you and Baslim and ahab and some others have posted to help me understand these issues. I also thank the skeptics for making me think and look things up. It’s all part of my education.

As a non-scientist who just wants to know what’s going on with the climate, I find discussion of the personalities (Gore, Mann, Begtsson, whoever) quite irrelevant. I want to see arguments based in science. I am happy to read those, from either side.

Thanks for the link to the National Geographic article. Mostly I see what it’s saying, and I take the point, but here and there I have a hiccup. For instance, the example of the PSA test doesn’t necessarily work the way the author wants it to. I remember vividly when I was told by my doctor that I absolutely should get the test, and I remember a few years later when my doctor said the test was not a good predictor and I should skip it. This kind of turn around makes me wary. I like to wait and see what the long term consensus is. I think a lot of people find these changes in the rules confusing. There are also a number of scientific or technological advances which have turned out to be kind of questionable. Plastic is wonderful, except it’s choking the oceans. Antibiotics are terrific, except that they are being way over used. I grant that GMOs are okay to eat, but I’m not sure that the widespread use of GMOs is entirely benign for the biosphere. And so on. None of this means that I don’t trust the scientific method. It means that I’m cautious when it comes to the human use of human knowledge. We are moving too fast for the natural buffers.